Final Fantasy wants to save your soul

Updated 11:53 pm, Friday, February 14, 2014

In “Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII,” Lightning is tasked with saving a dying world.

In “Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII,” Lightning is tasked with saving a dying world.

Photo: Courtesy Image / Square Enix

Final Fantasy wants to save your soul

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SAN ANTONIO — It all ends in the same way it began, with androgynous, elfin protagonists running around amid a strange combination of techno and classical melodies while wielding impossibly sized swords.

The final episode of “Final Fantasy XIII” is finally out, and with it comes revelations of the fates of some of the more interesting characters in the Final Fantasy myths.

“Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII” opens 13 days before the end of the world and 500 years following the end of “Final Fantasy XIII-2.”

Chaos is coming to destroy all humanity, and only one person can help keep it from going extinct.

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Lightning, one of the series' central characters, has been chosen to be the savior of the last remnants of humanity.

Along way she meets with previous allies and foes from the first two games, but none more central than Snow and Hope.

Hope, the John Connor-like leader of humanity from the previous game, has been de-aged and is now a 14-year-old boy, again, like he was in the first game. Why?

Never ask why in a “Final Fantasy” game when it comes to plot and story. You just roll with it. Hope's job is to guide Lightning on her missions and serve as a “Final Fantasy” version of Cortana, the AI from “Halo.”

Then there's Snow, Lightning's former soon-to-be brother-in-law, who is now the brooding and depressed leader of Yusnaan, a city in an eternal state of revelry.

Snow is in a funk because of the death of his fiancée Serah, Lightning's sister, and has spent the last 500 years in a whiny state of moroseness.

True, story and style of “Final Fantasy” is often one huge Emo nightmare, but roll with it because there is some fun to be had.

Which brings us back to Lightning, whose sole reason for agreeing to become the savior is because their god has agreed to restore Serah to life.

Keep in mind, as with any Final Fantasy game, the plot in “Lightning Returns” is heavy with bizarre concepts of mortality and destiny and almost impossible to follow if you are not an acolyte of the series.

This doesn't mean it is impossible to start new with “Lightning Returns,” but knowing the back story makes the game seem fuller and more complete — instead of thinking that you just spent the last several hours running around shouting “WTH?”

The revamped battle system in “Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII” is its strongest selling point.

Combat is now more fluid, in what designers call “Style-Change Active Time Battle.” This system allows for only one combatant on screen, instead of the more traditional party-based combat of most Final Fantasy games.

However, while in combat, Lightning is quite mobile and has the ability to switch combat packages, called schema, which encompasses Lightning's gear and abilities.

You can switch between three schema while in combat. Each schema can be customized with various swords and armor as well as types of magical attacks.

The only downside of the game is the ever-present clock. Missions and side quests are timed.

The in-game clock is constantly running down to zero hour and the end of the world. This provides for nervous game play at times. It can inhibit exploration and runs counter to the game's open-world design. Although there are abilities that let you slow down time or stop the clock for a while, a sense of urgency permeates the entire game.

So, while this is supposed to be the end story for “Final Fantasy's” Fabula Nova Crystallis timeline, I'm sure we'll see Lightning and the others pop up in one incarnation or another in the future.